“That motivates me a lot” – Fritz reveals new goal for remainder of 2024

Taylor Fritz has revealed a new goal for the remainder of the 2024 season: finish inside the world’s top five for the first time.

The American currently sits at No 5 in the Race to Turin, and is all but assured of a spot at the year-end finals. With qualification for the Nitto ATP Finals his primary goal for 2024, Fritz has now been forced to reevaluate his goals, and is chasing a career-best year-end ranking.

“I think obviously the goal going into every season in the beginning is like I’m trying to qualify for Turin and be top eight, I think that’s always like a good benchmark goal,” shared Fritz after defeating No 12 seed Holger Rune 6-1, 6-2 at the Shanghai Masters on Wednesday. “Now that that’s looking good, in a really good spot, I always want to re-evaluate my goals.

“Sometimes once you reach a goal I don’t think it’s good to get a little bit, I guess, complacent. So, yeah, the new one that I set for myself is it would be cool to finish the year top five.

“Obviously that’s my career high, but I think finishing the year at that rank as a whole is a whole different thing. Being five in the Race, obviously, I think it’s, you know, a goal that motivates me a lot to kind of finish the year strong.”

The 26-year-old has been ranked No 5 previously, but his best year-end ranking is No 9, achieved in 2022. 

Fritz bemoans challenging schedule despite success

Fritz’s current position in the Race is thanks to a big push in the second half of the year, where he made his maiden Grand Slam final at the US Open, as well as the quarter-finals of Wimbledon and bagged his third grass title in Eastbourne.

However, the high workload has taken its toll on Fritz this year, with the American having played 67 matches already in 2024.

“[I’m feeling] pretty awful,” confessed the world No 7 to reporters in Shanghai. “The season is too long.

“I always thought if I got ranked higher I could play less, and I am, I am playing less tournaments, but I’m also winning a lot more matches at the big tournaments, so I’m playing probably more than ever, even though I thought it wasn’t going to be like this.

“I’ve been dealing with injuries since the French Open that I haven’t had time to get to go away, I’ve kind of just been playing through. 

“That’s the thing, if an injury is not completely bad enough to keep me out, then I’m just going to play. I don’t want to waste months, and just slowly it gets better, and it kind of has. 

“[It’s] not just me. At this time of the year most of the guys have been going all year, everyone’s dealing with something.”

Next up, Fritz has a brilliant opportunity to make his second Masters 1000 semi-final of the season. He takes on world No 66 David Goffin in the Shanghai quarter-finals on Friday, with a potential rematch against Novak Djokovic – who beat him at the Australian Open – looming in the semi-finals.

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